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SERMON BY THE REV'D PATRICK T. GRAY AT THE CHURCH OF THE ADVENT, While Fr. Warren was away this past week in Mississippi, I was also away for part of the week, at the annual diocesan clergy conference, when most of the clergy from the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts get together for three days and two nights. Now some of the conference was fun, informative, and some not so much. And I think the really low point for me, when I was the most depressed came on Wednesday morning during a presentation on evangelism. Now as many of you know, I think evangelism is, well, pretty important, it seems to me to be one of the most important, if not the most important tasks, that the church, that the Advent, should be about at this time. And Bishop Shaw, to his credit, has said repeatedly how important the work of evangelism is for the life of the church, for the life of faith. He wants to see the churches in this diocese grow, and not just “qualitatively,” which seems to be the fall back argument for churches that are shrinking, that they offer a “deepening” of faith while their numbers plummet. No, Bishop Shaw thinks healthy things grow, both “qualitatively” and “quantitatively.” It’s hard work, for sure, but there will be an increase in numbers as well as a deepening of the life of faith, if a church is more or less healthy and in line with the way of the Gospel, the way of Jesus. This is good stuff. These are good concerns for a bishop to have. These are things that we as a church can support. So why was I depressed on Wednesday morning at a presentation on evangelism? Well, it’s not Bishop Shaw’s fault, if you were wondering. He’s simply paying attention to what’s around him, to the potential catch, as it were, so that we know where we should be casting our nets. Young adult ministry to people in their 20s and 30s has been very important to the bishop, which is a big reason he likes the Advent so much, with a quantity of young adults committed to the work of the Gospel, to the “qualitative” way of Jesus. He likes us so much that he gave us a grant of $5000 to kick-start a new diocesan initiative aimed at providing various churches and chaplaincies with an intern to help in the work of young adult ministry, and Devon Abts has been at that for us for just a few weeks now, and I feel bad for the other potential interns, because she’s setting the bar pretty high. But it wasn’t young adult ministry that was the topic of discussion on Wednesday morning. Apparently, the other mission field for the church, those folks most inclined to consider the Episcopal Church are disaffected Roman Catholics, which, according to recent statistics, numbers about 300,000 people in the Greater Boston area. Three hundred thousand folks who no longer attend a Roman Catholic church, but still consider themselves Roman Catholics. Now this may sound like a bit of “sheep-stealing,” but I guess the argument can be made that these folks are inactive, that “sheep-stealing” is more about taking active members of other congregations, other churches. So focusing on these folks is not really “sheep-stealing.” Whether that’s true or not, that’s not what depressed me. What depressed me was the research that had been done on these 300,000 people, about what they are apparently looking for in a church community. The way I would summarize it, is basically they want acceptance without transformation. One of the things that came through was a desire for community, but without feeling like they needed to change at all, they didn’t want the community, the clergy, to judge them. And if they didn’t come every Sunday, or even regularly, they didn’t want to be made to feel bad about that. The best example of this being their wish that taking their kids to sporting events on Sunday mornings not only not be viewed as a bad thing, but that in fact be viewed as “church-related.” That this was somehow also “church,” and that the focus was no longer about going to some building on Sunday morning. Church could be a lot of different things, such as taking your kids to soccer on Sundays. But not only did they want acceptance, not only did they want their normal patterns of behavior sanctified and made “churchly” if not holy, they wanted to be in leadership positions in the church, the very same thing that they didn’t necessarily want to go to on Sunday morning. They wanted to be in charge of that which they would commit to on their own terms, which might be no terms at all. Now I went through a lot during that presentation, depression, as I mentioned, anger, incredulity, but I got to say that it didn’t seem like the clergy of the diocese were too excited about this description of potential congregants, so it ended for me on a hopeful note. No one seemed too excited about this crowd, especially when we found out that the research that had been done was “qualitative,” not “quantitative,” meaning that only seventeen disaffected Roman Catholics had been interviewed for this study. I confess to being a little confused at times how polls that interview only a few thousand people accurately reflect millions of people, but it does seem to be slightly off that seventeen people could speak for 300,000. I suppose I could be wrong on that. But when I started to reflect on those seventeen folks, on what they had told the interviewer, I realized they represent a lot more than 300,000 people. That in fact, they’re just being honest about the way most of us are, whether it be at church or at work, at home or at school, the same pattern plays out. We use, we exploit, we demand, we commodify all those things that we should cherish, we should nurture, we should engage, we should commit to. Not surprisingly, Jesus was only mentioned once by one person in these seventeen interviews. But that’s the one thing, the one person, the one way that we just can’t give up on. Because the way of Jesus, the way people follow Jesus, that can feel like judgment to another, and in fact, could be judgment, judgment that is sometimes unhelpful to another. But to want the way of love, of acceptance, to want this without any transformation, is not love at all. Or at least, not a relationship. Because love changes you, and it can sometimes feel like judgment. And sometimes it should feel like judgment. But it’s judgment with a purpose, with a godly purpose. It’s there only to deepen the relationship, to bring back that which has gone astray, that which has fallen off the path, that which has departed from the way. Our Gospel lesson today reminds us again, if there was any doubt, that Jesus is the Way. A metaphor used by the biblical writers to talk not just about what Jesus is saying and doing, but the way he is doing it.(1) It was this understanding of the way of Jesus as the Way that identified the followers of Jesus in the early church. St. Luke writing the story of the first Christian community uses it six times in the book of Acts, those early Christians identified as “the Way,” whereas the term “Christian” is used only once by Luke.(2) I’m not advocating for a return to this term, but I do think we all need to spend a little more time thinking, a little more time acting, upon the ways that Jesus is the Way. We have to continue to discern what are the ways that make sense when we say we are followers of Jesus. We have to continue to discern the means adequate for living to the glory of God. And thankfully, it comes down to us from the same path, the help we need is found along the same way. “The way we come to God is the same way that God comes to us. God comes to us in Jesus; we come to God in Jesus. . . God comes to us in Jesus speaking the words of salvation, healing our infirmities, promising the Holy Spirit, teaching us how to live in the kingdom of God. It is in and through this same Jesus that we pray to and believe, hear and obey, love and praise God. Jesus is the way God comes to us. Jesus is the way we come to God.”(3) Let us recommit ourselves to this way today, for the sake of acceptance, for the sake of love, for the sake of transformation, for the sake of the kingdom of God. And who knows? Maybe those other two hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and eighty-three will want to know more about this way because they see it in you. Maybe even those other seventeen will want to know more about a love that transforms. Let’s say it, let’s confess it, let’s show it that Jesus is the Way. Amen. (1) Eugene Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways Jesus is the Way ( Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007), 22. |